Bhustan

  Geography

Bhustan is the northernmost and largest country on the island of Nulest, sharing a border with Kailla. It is largely desert, with oases scattered throughout, most of them having enough water for a few hundred people a most. However, the hills of Southern Bhustan get more precipitation, and there are a handful of rivers that come from the hills into Bhustan proper, most notably the Sindri River, which formed the Sindri Basin prior to the creation of Four Hills Dam and again after its destruction.

In the interim the city of Lyune grew up around a small artificial river created by the Imperial Hydrological Alchemical Research Institute. There are patches of farmland near the area, all of them using water imported from Lyune. Furthermore, there are a few other areas with artificial rivers, none of them major.

Government

Bhustan is theoretically led by an emperor in what resembles a fuedal system, but that no longer applies to the modern day. The emperor rules over Seimul personally, as well as leading an organization of higher nobles, called the Regional Kings. Each Regional King rules the oases in a certain section of Bhustan, under them are nobles who rule only one oasis. To some extent, this is the actual system in use.

In addition to that, most of the large oasis have formed full cities, and there are several cities formed around artificial rivers. Many of these have successfully removed nobles from their leadership, and are under control of a city government and either the emperor or a Regional King. The vast majority of the time, this translates to them simply operating as if they were city states, with taxes on top of that.

Not all of the population within Bhustan is sedentary. Nomads travel throughout the country, often in a somewhat tribal structure. Many of them spent more time in the Sindri Basin than other places, and there is a regional office to deal with them. However, due to the relative lack of Sindri speakers and the loss of documentation in the Sindri Flood most of the nomads have no connection whatsoever to the government.

Economy

Bhustan's internal economy is largely a market economy, with limited trade done in a similar manner. In addition to this is a centralized economy used for foreign trade and trade between regional kings, which still uses a barter system. While these economies do have heavy interaction, the basic means with which they are carried out are fundamentally different. The internal economy consists of two main parts, trade within an oasis or city and trade between oases and cities, both of which operate in different fashions. The external economy involves direct communication, deals for massive amounts of material or large work forces, and is conducted by government agents.

Trade within cities and oasis usually involves a dedicated market place, in which a certain area has been designated as a public market or merchants acquire temporary grants to an area from the noble that owns it, depending on the government of the city. For most places there is a designated market day, though large cities may have a permanent market with a dedicated merchant class.

Trade between cities almost always happens indirectly. Sindri nomads act as freelance merchant caravans, bringing goods from city to city. Due to the advanced alchemy present in Bhustan and the implementation of factories this leads to a system in which raw materials are produced at certain designated locations and exported to the majority of other cities. These cities in turn make and export processed goods, with everything continuing to flow around the country. In addition to this, there are occasional needs to transport food within the country, with the Sindri basin providing foods outside of those one would expect at an oasis.

Trade outside of Bhustan is a different matter entirely. Dedicated government organizations work with each of the other nations, with imports consisting primarily of materials that can't be directly produced, or finished goods that can be better produced elsewhere. This involves importing wood from either Esheni or Calum, depending on the current political need and relation with those countries, importing weaponry and hiring military advisors from Kailla. Exports are more limited, almost all of which are either alchemically produced materials or the hiring out of professionals using Bhustan's money. There is limited foreign trade that is done without the government as a whole. Most of this involves luxury goods for the very rich, usually involving sea traders from other countries, including hired Kaillan tribesmen.